THE TWO FACES OF JIHAD

What a sad statement is made by “Holy War Without End” (by Mark Bauman and Markos Kounalakis, Feb. 23).

Here we are in 1992, celebrating L.A.’s ever-increasing diversity, and yet two journalists, presumably highly educated, have such a poor grasp of Islam that they managed to turn a provocative article of international import into an indictment against an entire faith.

How is it possible that these writers were able to uncover the detail and nuance of life among these Afghans but did not even learn the real meaning of the word jihad, which is the subject of the piece?

I surmise that they entered the region with a preconceived, Western stereotypical concept and used that premise as a point of reference throughout. Jihad means a personal struggle. It is not, as the Western media would have us believe, a term for quixotic terrorists vowing to accept imminent death in the name of an ethereal cause.

VICKI TAMOUSH

Glendale

Editor’s Note: Jihad can mean a personal struggle, but it also is used by Muslim rebels in Afghanistan and other nations to mean a holy war waged on behalf of Islam, and is defined as such in various dictionaries.